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Today we’re going to crack open the organization playbook to the pro tips section and hit you with some of the best ideas you probably never of heard before for organizing your garage, pantry, and laundry room.

Garage

The biggest issue contributing to garage clutter is storing things that have no place anywhere else. Well, the truth is, these things may not belong in your garage anymore either. It might be time to get rid of some of the things that have settled here over the years. Here’s the rule of thumb:

The Three Year Rule

It you haven’t used it in three years, get rid of it. It’s time.

What do you do with all the things you’re getting rid of? Donate them, there’s a charity for almost everything. Check out our comprehensive list of charities that specialize in donations of almost any household item here.

Pantry

Get rid of store packaging that only makes sense in stores. Cereal comes in a box not so that you can easily store them efficiently within the precious space in your organized pantry, but because a cardboard box allows the marketing department to compete on the shelf among other brands, and sell the cereal. We don’t need this in the pantry.

Using glass jars is not only a more sightly way to store things like cereals and pastas, it keeps foods fresher longer, shows you exactly how much you have so you know when to by more, and saves a lot of space.

Laundry Room

Laundry rooms are usually smaller spaces that have to contain some of the largest machinery in the home besides the refrigerator. If you haven’t bought your washer and dryer yet, or if you have a stackable pair that’s stacked. Consider side-loaders arranged side-by-side to maximize surface space along the top. To spruce it up, lay a counter top down across them and/or install shelves.

To spruce up even further, put up a color besides laundry-room white, or tile a portion of the wall and in between shelves, like the photo above.

Many of us live in older homes that don’t seem to fit the new standard sizes of things. The shallow closet is where this is easily evident. Depending on the age of your home, you may not even have a closet deep enough to fit standard hangers properly. If this is the case we have a few suggestions to get the most out of this shallow space.

Hooks. Many old closets within older homes had hooks, rather than closet rods because hangers weren’t invented until the early 1900s and weren’t in homes until much later. Some may still have hooks installed, or have evidence that there were hooks. If hooks are something you don’t mind, and you want to keep the home close to original, this is a great option. Installing hooks will keep everything in arms reach, off the floor and clearly visible.

Install shelves. If you can, this is a great option and it will give you the much needed room for your clothing and shoes. Or use an old dresser if it will fit easily within the closet, instead.

Downsize the hangers. If your shallow closet is too narrow for standard hangers, purchase smaller hangers (like children’s hangers), or put your hangers diagonally on the closet rod. Another option is the tiered hanger solution. This way the clothes can be easily pushed away from the door so it can close.

Combine closet rods and shelving. Shallow closets usually continue a foot or more passed the door. So if this is the case install a short closet rod, from the back wall to the front wall next to the door, on each side. This will work perfectly for those items that need to be hung. Then, install shelves directly in front of the closet door for the clothes that can be folded neatly.

Get creative with your shallow closest. Combine two or all of the suggestions to get the most out of your closet space.

Yes, your closet can look “fat”. A fat closet happens when your clothes, shoes, and other items look as though they are about to explode. Basically, your closet will be silently screaming for help, that’s when our tips and tricks will come in handy.

Step 1: Lay It Out

Take everything out of your closet: purses, clothing, shoes, jackets, everything. Lay it all out according to what it is. Then go through each category and decide what to keep and what to trash or donate. If you decide to donate, here is our helpful list of places that can take almost anything, and give it to someone in need.

If you never wear that old sweater, donate it! If that T-shirt is too small, donate it! If Grandma bought you an ugly pair of bell bottoms, trash it, no one should have bell bottoms.

Step 2: Clean Out Those Skeletons

Now that your closet is empty, it’s time to thoroughly clean it! Vacuum up those cob webs, Lysol those dusty shelves and toss out those skeletons you’ve been hiding. Make your closet sparkle and shine before you place anything back inside it.

Step 3: Coordinating your Clothes

Decide which items need to be hung in the closet and which can be neatly folded into drawers or onto shelves. For example, your “Snoopy and Woodstock” pajamas don’t need to be hung. However, your dresses or suits should be. This alone will cut down on what is in your closet.

The clothes that are left to be placed back into your closet can be organized further. Coordinate your clothing by color, season, and/or use. In other words keep pants, shirts, dresses, suits, and skirts separate.

If purses or bags are stored in your closet, go through all of them and be sure you have trashed or donated as much as you can. Invest in purse hangers if you want to have them hang, or place them on a shelf, in a neat row, if your closet is equipped.

If you follow these steps your closet will thank you. A thinned down closet, is a happy closet and we are happy to help you and your closet find that happy place.

Shoes, we all have a growing pile of them on our closet floor. Then we complain about spending what feels like hours trying to find a matching pair, which turns the whole bedroom into a shoe explosion. Here are a few ideas for organizing the shoe clutter that haunts you.

Using the Space You Already Have

If your closet has loads of shelving, reorganize it! Reorganize the shelves to clear up some space and line up your shoes in neat rows. If you have deep shelves put a few rows of shoes on one shelf. Organize them by height, color, or season, whichever you choose. Now they’re easy to find, and within easy reach!

If you don’t have shelves and you’re not a shoe hoarder, we suggest even lining them against the back wall of your closet. Once again organizing them the way you prefer; by color, height, or season. Now you can easily spot the pair you want with ease.

Hang It Up

The shoe hanger, we all know someone that uses it. They may not be the most attractive thing to see in a closet, but they get the job done. There are many types of shoe hangers: clear pouches or solid colored, long or short, and of course the door hanging version, or the two-sided version that hangs from your closet rod. Choose the one that fits your closet best and hang up that shoe clutter.

If the shoe hanger is something you want to avoid here’s another alternative. Have those thin metal hangers lying around? Cut the bottom of the hanger and bend each end to create hooks. Now you can hang up your sandals, heels and other shoes.

If wall or door space isn’t an issue, hang up a coat rack! Yes, a coat rack and hang your sneakers or strappy sandals and heels. Hang up a few coat racks if you can and create rows of decorative, stylish shoe storage.

If heels are causing most of your clutter, and wall or door space isn’t a problem, use towel racks! Create a few rows for your heels and hang those heels up for easy access and keep the clutter off of the floor.

Getting Creative with Shelving

Narrow closet? No problem. Use extra spring rods! Put the back spring rod higher than the other for easy heel and stiletto storage. Have two spring rods level with each other for easy sneaker and other flat shoe storage. Make levels, and store shoes underneath. Spring rods can create great makeshift shelves for your shoes!

As mentioned in last week’s upcycling post, create shelving using an old cardboard wine box. Stack up a few wine boxes and decorate them with wrapping paper to create the perfect shelving unit for your closet space.

Give an old dresser new life! Remove the drawers and use the spacing like shelves. If there is no extra wood between the drawers, saw off the front of the drawer to create shoe shelves that slide out! Now there’s a unique spin on shoe storage!

So get creative and reorganize that monstrous pile of shoes in any way you choose.

And if you liked any of the pictures of our closet system solutions for shoe storage, check out the rest of the eShowroom here.

What To Do About Sloped Ceilings In a Small Closets

Sloped ceilings are one of the most common problems encountered by homeowners trying to optimize and organize their closet space. When a structural requirement arises in the building of a new home that calls for slanted or sloped ceilings, they are as often as not incorporated into the closet space.

But you can’t ignore the things you throw in your closet, even if they are architectural peccadilloes, especially if you don’t have a few steps and tips, and a sound strategy for dealing with your sloped ceilings. Suddenly every little detail becomes bound to your overall organization: your choice of shoe rack, storage containers, hamper, placement of your closet rod, even how you organize your belts and ties. It’s a delicate dilemma, but here are five easy steps to demystify it for you:

1. The Closet Rod and the Sloped Ceiling

Depth is askew in a closet with a sloped ceiling. That means that, depending on the angle of the slope and the size of the closet, the most space is at the bottom, and the closet narrows and tapers off at the top. Because we are going to have to optimize and organize with what we’ve got, it means we’re going to have to use that low depth, which means the closet rod needs to be installed as far forward as possible (which means higher up, too).

Shelf space at the top of a sloped-ceiling closet would be sparse anyway, so forgo narrow closet shelves, and prioritize prime placement of the closet rod. You’ll make up for it with added storage space behind and beneath your hanging garments. It may not be ideal. But it is the first thing to start thinking about when dealing with the less-than-ideal situation of sloped ceilings in the closet.

2. Shelving in a Closet with Sloped Ceilings

If you’re done thinking about step one, and you’ve still got room on the slope for closet shelving. Then it’s time to think about how to accomplish it. There are a verity of brackets and fasteners, as well as specially made shelving and shelving units which specifically accommodate the sloped ceilings in your closet. Many of them work on a hinge system so that home installation can be easily accomplished regardless of the varying angles of the slope. The bottom of the shelves is the place to put an extendable tie rack, retractable belt racks, and maybe even some lighting if doing so will save you valuable space up top. Since the floor space is going to be crucial, consider a hanging or hanger shoe rack as well.

3. The Four Seasons of a Closet with Sloped Ceilings

That would be spring, summer, fall, and winter just like everywhere else. And just like everywhere else, your closet – if it isn’t large and the slope is cutting into the organizational space even more – is going to change seasons. The winter is going to be the most tricky because of the larger, warmer clothing the cold requires. But the spring is going to be even more important because that is the time you are going to do the crucial change over from the winter clothes taking up all the room in your closet, to your summer clothes airing it out. Remember that awkward spot that may have been created at the low back of your closet, the least accessible, most annoying spot. This is a good place for storage containers which can hold the winter clothing you really aren’t going to need ready access to until next year. A closet that may not be big enough for all four seasons to be accessible at once, may just be big enough (with some diligent organization) for one or two seasons worth of clothing to be accessible at a time, while storing the unneeded clothing as well for the remaining two seasons.

4. Talk to us about your Closet with Sloped Ceilings! It is fun and free!

At Contemporary Closets, we are a team of professional designers and installers who deal only with organizational storage spaces like the closet, the pantry, the garage, and the laundry room. We will come right to your house for a free consultation and do what we love and do best: show you how to optimize your closet spaces in ways you couldn’t have imagined. If you don’t like us. Just kick us out. But most people like us; just check out the testimonial section of our site.

We are faster, nicer and better than anyone else in the custom closet industry, and it’s free to give us a try.

5. Don’t Worry… About a Thing… Including Your Small Closet with Sloped Ceilings.

Wrangling with the space in your closets is a nearly universal dilemma. Even if you have a spacious wing of your house devoted to you wardrobe, you still have to think about your organization if you are going to find anything. Storage spaces are daunting, especially if they’ve got sloped ceilings! But take advantage of these tips. Reach out to us in the comments section, or call us at (877) 647-7331 .. and you’ll be just fine.

Contemporary Closets knows the importance of spring cleaning, and knows that it’s easier and more efficient to get rid of old items when you know they are going to a good cause. So, we put together a helpful list of charities who will gladly help you take advantage of your spring cleaning as an opportunity to donate and support people in need.

That’s it. Thank you for letting us help you realize the potential for you life’s organization. The pleasure was ours. And thank you for letting us continue to be a part of that process.

1. Vietnam War Veterans of America
- Accepts clothing, shoes, housewares and glassware, drapes, toys, games, bikes, tools and small appliances
- Picks up directly from your home
- Contact them at 1-800-775-VETS (8387) or visit online at www.vva.org

2. Habitat for Humanity Re Store
- Accepts new and gently used furniture, appliances, lumber, hardware and unique items to the public.
- Contact them at 973-782-6993 or visit online at www.patersonhabitat.org/restore
- Store located at 415 Hamburg Tpk, Wayne, NJ 07470

When you are working with peoples’ closets all day you see A LOT of things, and meet a lot of people who are looking for a solution to their organizational quandaries. But lately, I’ve been seeing something very interesting; clients are experimenting with closet organization apps on their smartphones and tablet PCs, and they are having varying amounts of success.

Like all things, there are the good, the bad, and the ugly when it comes to choosing an app to add to your life. Here’s a quick guide to help you sort it all out.

1. NETROBE

We like Netrobe for iOS (iPhones and iPads) a lot, and we’re giving it a gold star.

The App requires a bit of TLC in terms of uploading EVERY article of clothing in your closet to its database. But it’s worth the investment, because once it’s there you have a categorized inventory of everything you own. You can mix and match outfits and save them to your “styleboard” for quick reference later, you can even go shopping and match clothing that your thinking about purchasing against the things in your closet.

You can even save items you’ve found online or taken pictures to a “lookbook” and then take it with you when your shopping, too.

If you’re so inclined, Netrobe even has an agenda calender in which you can save your outfit picks for each day of the week or special occasions.

Lastly, there isn’t anything these days that isn’t social, and Netrobe is no exception.

Of course, you don’t have to take advantage of this feature if you don’t want to. But even people who don’t like sharing their styleboard outfits out, enjoy a little fashion voyeurismperusing through the outfits that other people are sharing, and even saving them to their own lookbooks.

All in all, Netrobe is a nifty app that, like anything else, gives you back what you put in. But Netrobe is very neat, with a well thought out user interface and list of features. And we think it gives you back a lot for your time and energy investment. In terms of financial investment: it’s free.

2. STYLEBOOK

Stylebook is also an iOS phenomenon (iPads and Iphones only), with a full version that costs $3.99. But before you discount it in favor of a free app, please consider that Stylebook’s full version is very VERY full. Stylebook is the Rolls Royce of closet apps.

There’s hardly a fashion magazine that hasn’t at some point mentioned the Stylebook app, and there are even a few technology magazines that have featured it too. It’s simply loaded with features.

It’s free-form canvas for creating looks actually let’s you put the outfit together so you can see what everything looks like side-by-side. Then you can categorize it any way you like. For example, as a going-out outfit, or a casual look. You can do this with the items in your closet, or with items you find online, or in person.

Stylebook has the sharing capabilities and calendar-planning functionality you’d expect, but add to that a packing list feature, a shopping feature, personal size tracking, and an built-in, interactive expert style blog.

Stylebook will even keep track of what you’ve been wearing and generate statistical data for you on your own personal style trends. It’s a beast of a closet app, and for that, we’re giving Stylebook two gold stars.

3. CLOTH

Cloth, free for iOS (iPads and iPhones) doesn’t get any stars from us. Essentially, it’s simply an alternative camera role to store “selfie” photos of your outfits. There are some organizational features here, and some sharing features too, but there really isn’t anything to do with closet inventory at all. It’s essentially a mirror with a memory, which is cool, but doesn’t offer anything above and beyond your phone, so while we’ll list it here, because that is something, we’ll save our precious gold stars, too.

There are a multitude of apps in addition to these three which you’ll encounter when searching specifically for “closet apps”. However, we’ve found that most of them fall into the subtly, but importantly different category of “fashion apps”.

But, if you want to leverage the bleeding edge of modern technology to bring your closet into the future, and get an optimized experience when picking out outfits, shopping for clothing, or organizing your life, than we recommend one of these three.